374 MYSTIC ISLES 



bounty of rain upon the sea as upon the thirsty earth, 

 and which is beyond good and evil as we reckon them. 



When I became myself the hunter for fish, and stood 

 upon the hummocks of coral in water up to my waist or 

 neck, lunette in one hand and spears in another, I saw 

 a different aspect of the garden. I, naked among the 

 coral and the plants, must have looked to them like a 

 frightful demon, white and without scales, a horrible 

 devil-fish, my arms and legs glabrous tentacles, and the 

 lunette and spears adding to my hideousness and foul 

 menace. I know that was the impression I made on the 

 rainbow-fish, for they fled within the caves, and only 

 by peeping in through the glass could I see them to 

 drive the spear into them. These slender spears were a 

 dozen feet of light, tough wood, two of them with single 

 iron i^oints two feet long, and a third fitted with ten 

 fine-pointed darning-needles. For small fish I used the 

 latter, and in thrusting into a school was pretty sure to 

 impale one or two. 



I tied the rope of pandanus-leaves about my shoulder, 

 and pulled the canoe along with me as a creel, tossing the 

 fish into it as I took them. The first seven were often 

 of different kinds, and I did not despise the yellow and 

 black eels, the lobsters, the mao, or the oysters and 

 clams. 



I would rest my spears in the canoe, and meander 

 slowly and meditatively over the coral terraces, repeat- 

 ing verses : 



We wandered where the drecamy palm 

 Murmured above the sleepy wave: 

 And through the waters clear and calm 

 Looked down into the coral cave 



